No one really knows where or when the idea of the tent came from, although it has been known that animal skins stretched over wooden frames of varying shapes have been used as shelters for literally thousands of years. A very early and probably first mention of tents occurs in the Old Testament of the Bible. Noah "was within his tent" when warned about a storm and Lot "had tents" which apparently was a sign of some wealth at the time. The basic framework of the Roman soldiers' tent was a single pole driven into the ground. Fabric was draped over it and staked to the ground forming a pyramidal shape. Apparently, this primitive tent had been used for centuries before the Romans adopted it and even some versions are still used today. After the Civil War, the settling of the western portion of the United States was undoubtedly aided by the tent. It is known that pioneers lived in tents for long periods of time as they built their farm buildings. The boom towns that developed throughout America whenever a valuable metal such as gold or when oil was discovered were composed mainly of tents at first. Then, as the trains connected these towns and as lumber became cheaper and more available, permanent housing was built.
Today, tents are still very popular; being used for a wide variety of purposes. Certainly, a large market for tents is for recreational use and such tents can range from very lightweight models sheltering one person to what are called fixed-camp tents which are much larger and are preferred by those to whom extra space is more important than light weight and ease of carrying. Tents also have important non-recreational uses and often serve as temporary shelters when disasters occur and, more recently have been used in a number of communities as temporary housing for homeless people. Expeditions that are sent out into wilderness areas also find the need for tents as shelters for the people involved in the project, and it is not uncommon to find a number of tents erected, some of which serve to house the people, others may serve for food preparation, for bathing and toilet use and the like. In all such situations where a number of tents are involved in sheltering people, the individual tent structures are separate from other of the tent structures and although there is a so-called community of tents, there is usually no provision made to provide for protection from the elements such as rain and snow when the occupants are outside of the individual tents, nor is provision made to secure a common area from roving animals and the like.
Consequently, there is a need for a shelter arrangement which includes multiple tents or a community of tents which are arranged and joined together in such a manner that each tent in effect shares a common area immediately adjacent the tent with other of the tents and which common area is substantially sheltered from the elements and from roving animals as well.
With the foregoing in mind it is therefore an object of this invention to provide a tent system in which multiple tents are joined together in such a manner so as to provide an enclosed common area which is substantially protected from the elements and from roving animals.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a tent system in which the common area is immediately adjacent to an entry or exit from each of the tents included in the system.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide such a system in which the additional cost and effort to gain the advantages thereof is rather minimal over and above the cost of the individual tents themselves, which is portable and that it is relatively easy to erect and dismantle when necessary and transport the system to another site.
These and other objects of this invention will be more apparent as this specification proceeds.